Chapter Three: I, Robot.
Okay, free will, in a gameboy game, a later version than Yellow, not quite sure which one.
"God help me" I mumbled aloud. "What next?"
Well, I'm not quite God, but I can help you.
My second clichéd movement today, I spun around, looking for the source of that voice. Neither of the townspeople looked away from their walking. Step. Pause. Step, step. Pause.
They're not going to help you.
"What the hell?" I said aloud. Well, it wasn't like the townsfolk were going to notice or anything, and Rocker Kid was still weeping too loudly to notice anyone else. "Where is that voice coming from?" and why did it sound so familiar?
From the start menu, kid.
"Start menu? Oh," I understood. "Right. It's a gameboy game."
Glad you figured that one out for yourself. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the help button.
Suddenly the voice clicked in my head. "No you're not. You're Tommy Lee Jones. His voice, at least."
No, I'm not.
"Are too. You sound just like him."
Am not.
"Are too."
Am not.
"Are too."
Am not.
"Hey, is Will Smith as hot in person as he is on screen?"
No.
I heaved a sigh of disappointment.
Hotter.
"Sweet," I whispered. It sounded like my nameless rival had stopped crying. I decided I probably should keep my voice down. "So, Tommy Lee, how can you help me?"
I can tell you how you got here, and how you can leave.
"That would be nice," I invited.
Alright kid-
"Mercedes." Silly as it was, I liked my name. Better than Agatha or something.
I knew that. Alright Mercedes, here's the deal. Once upon a time a few bored Nintendo programmers started playing with some gameboys. They wanted to make them interactive, and they succeeded, a little too well.
"Hence me being here."
Exactly. The systems literally sucked the player into the game. Of course, the programmers got fired for tampering with company property, and only a handful of the "improved" gameboys were mistaken for normal ones and actually sold.
"How would you know if your own programmers were fired?"
This gameboy is very, very interactive. The weather in Reality is 82 degrees Fahrenheit, it's a Tuesday morning, and someone needs to do their laundry.
"That would be me." I intended to do it that morning but hey. Plans changed. "So how did I get here? I mean, really get here? I don't even remember playing gameboy, let alone being sucked into one Poltergeist-style. Hell, I can't remember what I did last night."
The Poltergeist analogy isn't far from accurate. And the effects are a little traumatizing. The last one to get sucked in here blacked out her immediate memory, too.
"Last one? Other people are in here with me?"
Yes. One other. She's been in here for two weeks.
"Wow. How far in is she?"
Not very. She got a little…sidetracked. But to answer your original question, you bought this gameboy yesterday morning at a garage sale, on your way to camp. The family of the first girl actually saw her get transported into here, and reacted…strongly. They were selling most of their possessions and becoming Amish.
"They didn't even get rid of the gameboy their daughter got eaten by?"
Waste not, want not.
"Easy for you to say."
Nevertheless, you couldn't believe they were selling a gameboy and a Pokémon game for just five dollars and bought it. Last night at camp you couldn't sleep, so you started playing and viola. Here you are. I wonder how your camp friends and counselors will react to your disappearance?
"You can wonder?"
I can calculate the probability of any number of millions of human reactions to a given situation and decide the most likely response. It's basically the same thing.
"Actually, it's likely no one will notice. I'm going to band camp. Band geeks are the biggest sexual deviants in the history of teenagerdom. They'll just assume I went off with a couple of tuba players to have few lewd affairs. As long as I'm back by the end of the three weeks, no one's going to notice one missing harpsichord player."
Harpsichord. That's unusual.
"So are sentient gameboy help menus."
Point taken. Any other questions I can help you with?
"Which version, exactly, am I playing in, and how do I get out?"
Pokemon crystal version. Essentially the yellow version to pokémon versions silver and gold. They came after red, blue and yellow. You're not too far removed from the originals you played.
That was good to know. "And how do I get out?"
Simple. Beat the game.
Wonderful. I had to beat a game operating in real time in under three weeks, or someone who cared would notice me missing and freak out. I didn't want to deal with the "Where have you been young lady?" hassle when- if?- I got back.
"So I basically I'm Dorothy, and this isn't Kansas."
Correct.
"Okay Tommy Lee Glinda, you've been a big help. I'm gonna go try and get to Oz now. How can I contact you if I need, well, help?"
Silence. I stupidly looked up to the artificially perfect blue sky. Where did Tommy Lee Jones' voice go?
"Help?" I whispered.
That's how. Saying 'help' both activates and de-activates me. But don't leave me on all the time. A program needs his beauty sleep mode.
"Gotcha," I was beginning to like this situation. It could be fun, right? Dangerous if something happened to the gameboy, maybe a waste of band camp fees, and it could potentially cause irrevocable harm to my relationships with people in Reality if it went on too long; but then there was the adventure. How many people got this chance? Two I knew of, myself included. It could be fun to have a literal vacation from Reality. Maybe I would be really good at this game. And the possibilities! I'd always secretly wanted to sully the virtue of an E-rated game. Yeah. It would be an adventure. A real life virtual adventure. And it wasn't like I had a choice. Time to be the Pokémon champion.
Okay, that sounded a little gay. Still, it was that time. "Thanks TLJ. I'll call you if I need you."
That's what I'm here for.
"Help." Silence again. Well, silence besides the creepy, shitty soundtrack playing in the background. That could get annoying. My energized mood droned out any irritation, however, and I walked into Elm's lab humming bits of the theme song I remembered from the TV show. This was going to be fun.